So the DOE has decided, unilaterally, to release teacher data reports to the public despite earlier promises that the reports would be confidential. If you saw this coming, raise your hand!(**stops typing due to temporary loss of one hand**)
Even if you believe, as some well-intentioned people do, that these ratings should be public, anyone who values fairness and collaboration should be disgusted by this move on the city's part. My high schoolers, callow and inexperienced in such matters as they may be, would nevertheless call this, rightly, what it is: a stab in the back. The city and the teachers had an agreement that should be honored until and unless it is mutually renegotiated. Mutual consent is the basis for functional relationships between adults, and by unilaterally going back on that agreement, the city is violating that consent.
Maybe I missed it, but I'm not hearing any vast public clamor for the reports. This is not a matter of life and death. Many teachers have not even had the opportunity to discuss their reports, flawed and questionable though they may be, with their principals. I hope that whatever judge gets the pleasure of hearing the UFT's argument does the right thing and forces the city to keep their word.
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